Monty returns to put boot into Dragons

Saturday 19 January 2008 19.14 EST
First published on Saturday 19 January 2008 19.14 EST

Percy Montgomery returned to inflict a terminal blow on his former club, Newport Gwent Dragons, and confirm Perpignan's place in the quarter-finals of the Heineken Cup. The South Africa World Cup winner capped his return to Rodney Parade with 10 points, including a conversion with the final kick of the game, to complete the rout.

Jean-Phillipe Grandclaude scored the only try of the first half in soaking conditions before David Marty and Adrien Planté crossed in the final stages of this wash-out to send the Catalan club through to the last eight as runners-up behind London Irish.

Man of the match Nathan Hines said: 'We came here to get the win because we knew that would be enough to go through so we're happy to get the job done. The score reflected the game. Newport didn't look like scoring.

'We got the message about 10 minutes from time that London Irish had still to get the bonus point in Italy and we tried to step it up, but Newport defended pretty well and we couldn't get that extra point. But we're happy to be going through.'

Perpignan will discover from today's final games where they will travel in the quarter-finals, including the distinct possibility of a return to pool rivals London Irish, although none of their prospective opponents will have been overly concerned at this performance. The French have looked far from impressive in all three away games and spent much of this game on the back foot against a Dragons side already out of the tournament.

Trailing 10-0 at the break, the Dragons had plenty of chances to finish their campaign with a first home win, only for centre Phil Dolman to knock the ball on under the posts after a lightning break by Ceri Sweeney and Gareth Wyatt.

It summed up the Dragons' afternoon. Coach Paul Turner, who hopes to agree a new two-year deal with the region, said: 'It was a committed performance from the lads and I was proud of their second-half performance, but we lacked the final touch to score. We missed a big chance to bring it back to within a score and that was the game gone.'